Here are the key developments on the 1,084th day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Here is the situation on Wednesday, February 12:
Fighting
A Ukrainian drone attack damaged an industrial facility in the Saratov region of Russia, regional Governor Roman Busargin said.
A Ukrainian Security and Defence Council official, Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko, said the attack on Saratov targeted an oil refinery that supplied Russian forces with fuel. No casualties were reported.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said air defence units intercepted and destroyed 40 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory, out of which 18 were destroyed in the Saratov region.
The Russian military said its forces have taken control of the Yesenove settlement in eastern Ukraine.
Kyiv said Russia launched 124 drones and 19 missiles at Ukraine in an overnight attack. According to the Ukrainian military, 57 drones were shot down while 66 failed to reach their targets.
Natural gas production facilities were hit and damaged by Russian attacks in central Ukraine’s Poltava region, the country’s state-owned oil and gas firm Naftogaz said. Ukraine’s Minister of Energy German Galushchenko announced power restrictions due to these attacks, which did not result in casualties.
Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency reported that two men were sentenced to lengthy prison terms after they were convicted of aiding Ukraine’s Army. A military court in western Kirov sentenced one of the men to 21 years in prison for setting fire to three electrical railroad structures. In a separate case, a 22-year-old was sentenced to 12 years in prison for treason.
Poland’s military said a Russian aircraft violated Polish airspace over its territorial waters. The Russian Sukhoi 24MR tactical bomber aircraft reportedly flew 6.5km (4 miles) into Polish airspace and stayed for more than a minute. The Operational Command of the Russian Armed Forces said the incident occurred due to a navigation system failure.
Russian bomb disposal experts from the Ministry of Emergency Situations defused a French-made SCALP cruise missile in the Kursk region, the ministry confirmed.
Politics & Diplomacy
US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News that he wants the “hundreds of billions of dollars” spent by the United States on Ukraine to be secured regardless of whether Ukraine may or may not lose its sovereignty to Russia. Trump also claimed that Kyiv had “essentially agreed” to provide $500bn worth of rare earth minerals to the US in exchange for Washington’s support.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is scheduled to visit Ukraine this week, Trump announced on social media. Reuters said Bessent would be discussing a potential deal concerning rare earth minerals on the trip.
Trump’s administration has no intention of sending US troops into Ukraine, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters. Instead, Hegseth said he would push European allies to spend more on defence.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was willing to swap Kyiv-controlled areas of Russia’s Kursk region in exchange for Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia, if negotiations took place.
The White House announced that US special envoy Steve Witkoff secured the release of Marc Fogel, a US citizen detained in Russia. Washington said this was a sign that things were moving in the right direction to end the war in Ukraine.
Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that a significant population in Ukraine “wants to be Russia”, just hours after Trump suggested Ukraine may or may not become part of Russia.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia has imposed “systematic and widespread” restrictions on reporting and called out Moscow for its coordinated efforts to suppress dissent.
Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency quoted the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova as saying that US Ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracy had held talks with Moscow’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to discuss the operation of Russian diplomatic institutions abroad.
Ukraine’s parliament passed a law allowing the country’s state nuclear power operator to buy two Soviet-designed nuclear reactors from Bulgaria for Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi power plant.
